


Step Back, Step Forward

by jenni3penny



Category: NCIS
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 21:37:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18039509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenni3penny/pseuds/jenni3penny
Summary: I had two requests: 1) Jack/Gibbs, and 2) beat the crap outta Gibbs. Possibility for a sequel! "In his nightmares it’s always been her. And he's never quite managed to save her. She's always one more name on a list too long."





	Step Back, Step Forward

If she and Torres have anything more in common than the rest of them it's that they love with the furious precision of a damn strategic airstrike. This is something she knows, it's something she's known since very shortly after meeting him.

It's just... Well...

Nick just has less grace about it than she does, a little less wisdom. He's a little green in his loving still. “Come on, come on, _come on._ ”

It doesn't matter how many times he says it, it doesn't even really matter what words he says, not in the long run. Nothing can change the fact that less than a football field away Gibbs and Ellie are trying to talk down a man who has enough explosives strapped to his chest to make a pretty big dent in the dirt, so to speak.

But Nick is, in general, _clumsier_ with affection than she is... 

_But then, God, he's just so young. So, so young._

And their brand of love is (sniper) specific, particular in its aim. It's encompassing, unavoidable.

It's deafening and dangerous and, for the most part, it could blow right the fuck up in their faces.

Now there's a legitimate threat that it's truly about to do so. But some events are so monumental to the mind that they cannot be accepted before their arrival and she simply _can-not_ accept this particular possible loss unless she is forced to face it in Real Time.

She cannot accept the loss of Jethro Gibbs unless she is forced to face it head on.

Not that she'd admit to _that_ in public.

“Nick,” she grits through her teeth in answer, a fist digging so hard into his jacket sleeve that she feels her own fingernails pinch against the thin fabric. “ _Shut up_.”

He can't just shut himself up (or down) - she realizes that. That's just her (secretly sweet) pal Nicholas. It's a facet of his character, really - the fact that he just cannot be still. It's simply not in his nature to be calm when something threatens someone he cares about. 

“Who's great idea was this?”

“Um, well,” Jack half shrugs, edging closer against his upper arm and groaning as she watches Gibbs lift his hands slowly, speaking so softly that they can't possibly hear what he's saying at such a distance. “It may have been mine. But I told Gibbs it was a really _bad_ one.”

_Completely moronic, really. Hindsight and all that._

“Bad, huh?” He accuses, pointing at the scene across the parking lot from them, at the way Gibbs is very tentatively dragging Bishop back and away from their suspect (their certified lunatic). “What the hell makes you say that?!”

She watches Gibbs step gingerly backwards and in her head she sees him thrown from the blast that has yet to arrive. She's seen men thrown back from force and flame before, she's seen them shattered and battered broken. For that matter, she's seen men that she loves die before... And in multiples, even. One after the other, in succession and repetition.

But she's just not sure Nick's ever watched a woman he loves lose more than just her footing to an explosive device.

It's only a millisecond before the sound of her response is tangled with her tongue and dried up empty, the force of the explosion coming only a half a breath later and stealing the wind from her words.

It happens near the same as she had imagined it would, with only one unforeseen exception.

Because Gibbs loves stronger than either of them do, honestly.

And she should have expected that he would take the full force of the blast just to be sure that Eleanor wouldn't.

 

***

 

Even while his body is motionless before her, she still feels jostled by the ambulance ride. It's the thing people don't ever think about until they're getting bumped and rocked around - it really is just a truck. A truck that has so much going on in such an eerily intimate space. And as she watches him, hours after she's re-grounded herself from that particularly uncomfortable ride, she's simply amazed by how quietly motionless he is in the hospital bed.

It's unheard of, it's disquieting and disconcerting. He's usually so quick to move, so categorically brusque, so… He's actually fairly attractive when he's getting his crew to hustle and double-time it. So capable, so unabashedly…

_Sexy, Jack. It's damn sexy._

She'll admit it. She thinks it's goddamn attractive sometimes. Because he's agile and aware, bright-eyed and prepared, age be damned. However, his age is the first thing that she can see on him while unconscious in the bed before her. Beyond how well he can otherwise hide his years, beyond how pale he is while recovering… she can momentarily see years on him that she usually otherwise dismisses. Most especially when he gives that wonderfully impish grin, that smirk that says the whip crack of his humor is fast and ageless.

She _can_ see age and pain, though. She can see blood on pale translucence and there are surprise injuries hidden all over the whole of him. Bandages and bruising make her wince as she studies how they have him tipped more toward the doorway, rather than leaned toward the windows. His entire body is at a strange slant on the mattress that she doesn't entirely understand but also doesn't question. Considering the way he twist-turned himself over top of Bishop as their bodies fell to the ground, it makes sense that there are likely more serious injuries on his back than she'd realized.

Her own back spikes blind-hot and flushed at the very memory of trying to sleep while pain seized her, trapped her into paralyzed stillness. Recovery had been burning and wincing. Hell, it's been years and she still can't sleep the night flat on her back.

“Bishop?” She's somewhat startled by how gently he wakes and whispers, by how still he stays and how perfectly deliberate the question is asked. He makes each syllable sound off perfectly and it surprises her entirely, she’s embarrassed by how much she jumps at the realization he’s coherent. She's been so utterly distracted by studying the whole of him that she hasn't noticed him silently watching her in return.

“She's fine,” she soothes, nodding twice to confirm.

One eye is shot-through with blood but both of them are so beautifully blue, even if they are a bit glassy with confusion. The entire left side of his face is already starting to discolor, mottling up and veining. His hairline is crusted with dried blood and it stains into his hair, streaking back into a bandage that's barely holding itself in place. She reminds herself silently to mention it to the incoming night nurse.

“Ellie?” he asks shakily and she realizes that he's not as aware as she had first thought. His passive stillness upon waking had been more about safety and environmental reconnaissance rather than stoicism. He probably hadn't even known where he was - likely still doesn’t. “Where's Ellie?”

“Relax,” Jack murmurs, her arm lifting and laying alongside him so that her fingers press the curve of his shoulder. His body is hot beneath the fabric of the scrub shirt they’ve put him in and she lays her palm onto his shoulder slowly, carefully. “She's okay. Just bumps and scrapes.”

He turns his face into the bend of her knuckles, his eyes slimming half closed as he presses his jawline against the back of her hand. “McGee and - ” 

“Tim is fine and Nick is with Ellie.”

“Gotta step back,” he whispers, more because he's losing his voice than out of any worry that someone will hear. “She's... not ready for that.”

She doesn't understand the reference at first, not while she's still just trying to accept how damn hard the force of the blast had actually hit him, how strangely limp he seems in front of her.

She doesn't understand it until he attempts to shake his head against the thin hospital pillow and blinks at the shadowed ceiling with annoyance instead. “She's not ready to hear it.”

Ellie. He means Ellie and… the fact that sometimes Torres can't control his mouth. Nor himself, in general. But that said, he has a pretty good leash on his emotions, usually.

Jack tries to draw her hand down slowly and she flinches still as he reaches up to stop her. His hand is heavy and drops awkwardly onto her own, cumbersome but warm. There's a momentary tremor to the touch before his hand just rests into heaviness.

“Don't worry about that right now,” Jack disregards quietly, her hand still trapped under the motionless warmth of his own. “He knows that.”

“Sometimes circumstances… he can't push.”

“He isn’t, Gibbs.” Jack half smiles even as she rubs the fabric of his shirt under the pads of her fingers. She exhales with him unconsciously, just barely noticing that she's tailored the rhythm of her breathing pattern to the slow gait of his. At least maybe it'll calm the both of them down a bit. “I'm surprised by you. All the time, it seems. I thought you were strictly against - ”

“You hurt?” he suddenly worries, confusion seeming to take up the less battered side of his face. Confusion and something that looks like legitimate concern. Something that very much reminds her of the first look on his face after she herself had been knocked flat by a car bomb.

Concern, fear, and helplessness.

“Not at all,” she murmurs as she blinks, a little leaned back with surprise, a bit flushed and blushed by his gentle worry. He's terrifying at times, most often when he's being sweetly serious. “I'm fine.”

“There was a minute… I lost track…didn't know if it was you or Bishop.”

She can imagine that, to most outsiders, she and Ellie could maybe seem interchangeable if it weren't for the fifteen or so years between them. But for him… he had to have been so disoriented, so rattled and staggered.

_Christ, it could have been so much worse._

Jack sighs hard, feeling her lungs volley a little at the end and she grips his shirt up in her fingers as she shakes her head. “It wasn't me. I'm fine. Ellie is fine.”

“M’not ready for it to be you.” He had kept her hand trapped under his until saying it and she holds her breath as he lifts his palm. Instead of dropping it away he reaches to catch against her inner sleeve and dig in. She doesn't think he even realizes that he's mirroring the same trapping of fabric she has in her own hand. Feeling him tuck them together has her not caring much, though. She'll take it, regardless of how coherent he is, just to know that he's okay. “Either of you.”

She smiles reflexively at how charming and nervous his voice seems. He's growing more consciously aware and so more self conscious at once. The blue of his eyes is getting gray, squallish. “Oh, _excellent_ back-pedal, Gibbs.”

He would likely just roll his eyes at her if he was up to par, if he wasn't half dazed. Instead he stares her down, breathing evenly before very quietly telling her, “Y’make me nervous, Sloane.”

Says one of the only men in the Metro area who can chill her blood still and sluggish… Or make it burn up hot.

_Holy hell…_

_“_ Full of stunning admissions today,” she says as her smile shoots wider and probably a little sassier. It's been the measure of years (years) since she's felt so horribly terrified and then so flirtatiously glorious in such rapid succession. “You should go back to sleep.”

Honest vulnerability lives in the color of his eyes for a moment and she watches it happen as she smooths against his shoulder. “Don't wanna hear it?”

“On the contrary,” Jack presses farther up over him, standing and brushing her mouth onto his uninjured cheek for a soft kiss. “I just don't want you to regret saying it under duress.”

***

In reality, he knew that it had been Ellie. Of course he did, does. He knows that he'd taken most of the brutal force and the blast and the sound. There hadn't even been pain at first, in that first knocked-outta-his-own-lungs breath. It had all just been sound and force and pressure.

_It's so fucking loud. Isn't it, El?_

_You're all right, though, kiddo._

_I've got you. You're gonna be okay._

He knows that in reality she’s half a foot shorter than him and that he'd wrecked around her so tightly that he would have taken most any of the hits that were coming her way.

He knows that Ellie smells like fruity-sweet-something and that she sucks mints against the inside of her cheek and that's nothing like what anyone else he knows smells like.

He can pick out his own daughter when she's nearby, for fuck's sake. Thank you very much. He doesn't need…

_Fuck… It's worse._

“Jack?”

 _Where are you? I'm losing my mind_.

“Relax, Jet. I'm right here.” She is, too. She's so close that he can almost taste the mulled and comforting scent of her.

God, she smells like warm silk and whatever lotion it is she uses. It's always there, that heated and heady scent.

“Cuz I dreamed it was you.”

In reality, he knows it had been Ellie. But in dreams, it becomes an entirely different sort of nightmare.

In his nightmares it’s always been her.

And he's never quite managed to save her.

She's always one more name on a list too long. 

***

It's Ellie, not Nick, who surprises her the next morning. It's Ellie, who still has a cut across her forehead with two little butterfly bandages and a bruise on her cheek and her hair knotted back off her face.

Jack ignores the fact that the last time she’d left her office the door had been locked and there _hadn't_ been a cute little blonde in it. “Eleanor.”

“Hi, Jack.” Jesus, she looks and sounds so young when she's sad. And she's very obviously morose, her pale face tells the story of every sad fairy tale princess. She looks betrayed, lonely. She looks like she just needs a woodland animal or a fairy friend and everything will be just fine.

“Talk to me,” Sloane encourages gently, setting her bag onto the top of her desk and continuing on by. She shifts to sit opposite the young woman on the couch, the both of them turned sidelong and wedged into opposite ends. Jack slips her heels off, lets them drop to the floor with a light thump as she angles the younger woman a questioning look and lifts her feet up beneath her.

“They won't let me in to see Gibbs.” Ellie shrugs it off like it (supposedly) means nothing. Like it isn't bothering her enough to break into her pseudo-therapist’s office. Then realization blooms beautifully over her face and she pans Jack a slowly accusatory look. “How did you get in?”

“Well… I did what any self-respecting field agent would do... I lied.” A flush of near embarrassment touches over her cheeks and she shrugs, lifting the hand that has a ring glittering where it normally wouldn't. It's a ring she'd just happened to still have in her bag because she'd never really cleaned it out after her last date. “I put a ring on my left hand and told them we’re engaged.”

Ellie purses her lips and minutely nods as though she's impressed, her eyes flicking over to the ring and then back to Jack's chagrined smirk. “Nice.”

“He's okay, Ellie. Really. He's gonna be all right.”

Bishop snorts her derision, turns her head so that she can lean an arm against the back of the couch. She sets her chin against her sleeved forearm, “I saw your face, Jack. He's not all right.”

“Ellie… You can't judge his injuries by my immediate response, sweetheart.” Jack could be embarrassed as she says it but, honestly… She’s really not. She’s not going to apologize for having a bit of a crush on a kind and noble and respected man. He's worth a workplace crush, times a hundred. She doesn’t feel any shame in looking the younger woman straight in the face and admitting as much. “I may be biased.”

“Biased good or biased bad?” Eleanor asks with a deeper and heavier tone of voice, her head turning back so that her eyes are on Jack's.

_Oh, sweetie… I'm not gonna hurt him._ _Pretty sure it's far more likely that he'll hurt me._

“Biased with only the best of intentions, I promise you,” she assures the younger woman, reaching out and grasping up Ellie's nearest hand in her own. The ring sparkles a little and she sighs in response to the sight of it, the reminder of how easily she let a lie live on her tongue just to stay close to him.

“He thought I was you.” The other agent's whisper draws her head up from their clasped hands. “He called me ‘Jack’.”

“I doubt that. It was probably just shock and he probably wanted my help. He knew that Nick and I were there. It's no - “

“I'm not stupid, Jack.” It's probably the first time that Ellie has ever used such a sharp and stern tone of voice with her and it has her jumped still.

_That's obvious…_

Jack dips her head in agreement, her voice going soft as she lifts her free hand in surrender. “No, you certainly are not.”

And Bishop accepts it instantly, blinks and she unconsciously shakes her head. A frown darkens her features. “I just want to see that he's all right, you know?”

A brow lifts in understanding and Jack nods slowly, “Physical evidence, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You will,” Jack assures her gently, lifting their combined hands so that she can brusquely kiss into the center of the other woman's palm. It's maybe beyond the usual line she would draw with the staff, it's more affectionate than she would usually allow. But this… this has every one of them on edge. This is the exception to the rule. “Now… Did you break into my office or did Torres do it for you?”

“It wasn't locked.” Hell, it's near absolutely believable. Jack imagines the only reason she doesn't fall for the lie is that Ellie lets just the faintest twitch of a smile lift the one corner of her mouth. And she lets Jack see it, her eyes finally shining per usual. “Was it supposed to be locked?”

She simply sighs with a tired smile, “You two are dangerous.”

 

***

 

She looks exhausted but he's not about to suggest she leave. Time is sluggish in Recovery and dragging when he doesn't have a visitor. Its removal from the rest of the world taunts at him and his frustration sky-rockets, makes him irascible and churlish. He knows it, he's entirely aware. He knows the nurses can see his mood swings coming from a mile away. He knows one of them called her to see if she could stop by and while it would usually burn his ass… there’s something comforting about the way she’s seated perpendicular to the hospital bed, her wool socked feet pressing up against his upper thigh.

She's left her ankle high boots tumbled on the tiled floor beside the bedside table and she’s side-turned toward him in the chair. At his secret request one of the night nurses had brought her a larger and more cushioned chair the night before. She's in jeans, heavy socks, a cropped white sweater with a shirt under it.

She's spent the last two days looking too cold for comfort and it seems she’s given up on getting warm again. At least any time soon.

There's frustration behind her glasses, darkening up her pretty eyes as she speaks at him but not to him. It's making her weariness even more evident. “The thing is, I don't think Leon is going to agree to letting either of you - ”

“Jack?”

“What's wrong?” she asks, studying him over her glasses as she flattens the paperwork she'd brought against the flats of her thighs.

“Why'd you come today?”

Jack half smiles, one side of her mouth lifting as she snorts and drops her head backwards, relaxing as she dumps lower in the chair. “Amanda said you were being belligerent. Oh, and that I'm the only woman you don't yell at.”

She waits a beat for the words to sink in and she watches him for a response. He knows how bad he looks at this point but she doesn't show it at all as she studies him. His left eye is still bloodshot and his face is still a mess of colors. Hasn't shaved in days, either.

“That true?” she asks, just a gentle taunt.

“I don't yell,” he grumps back, even as he drops a hand to the way she keeps pushing teasing toes against the side of his thigh. “Amanda should mind her own business.”

“You currently _are_ her business. Officially.”

“I don't _yell_ , Jack.” He tries to keep a straight face as she arches a brow and grins at him. She pulls a face like he's full of shit and he chuckles quietly, likely for the first time since they'd wheeled him into the emergency room.

“That's true,” she murmurs, voice low and lulling. “You usually just growl.”

His hand presses down onto the top of her foot and flexes in teasing response, fingers massaging into the socked arch. She watches his face a moment in interest and he purposely schools his features, keeps his face passive and jaw lifted as he continues slowly massaging against the steep arch. She damn near purrs as her head drops back onto the chair, eyes fluttered shut and shoulders lax.

“I'll pay you not to stop,” she groans, wiggling deeper in her chair and pressing her foot farther into his lap with a confident assurance that surprises him.

Christ, she keeps surprising him.

And he loves it.

“Take me home, Jack.” The request is softly made, and intentionally so. And he watches it work on her as she moans and lifts her head, blinking big brown eyes at him. He smiles with equal gentleness, rubbing the fine bones in her ankle while he holds the way she's looking at him. “Get me outta here.”

“Oh, that was a cheap shot, Gibbs,” she accuses with mock frustration. A finger points in his direction as she digs a heel against his thigh and shoves gently at him. Otherwise, she doesn't move, still content to let him continue what he was doing. “Not fair.”

Gibbs can't help laughing as she pouts at him, her whole face looking younger in its petulance. “You look… You're beautiful.”

“I'm betrayed!” She laughs and leans forward, blushing and slapping at his hand as he tickles his fingertips up the back of her calf. “You little shit.”

“ _Jacqueline_ ,” he hums to the side before turning his eyes on her. She has trouble contradicting him when he looks her square in the eyes and he sorta loves it. “Please?”

Her features go wary and guarded as she shakes her head. “Don't you dare pull the full name card.”

“Ducky says your full name like it's fancy French pastry.”

A cute little smirk starts playing over her mouth again and it's the first time in a couple days that he's gotten the solid beginning of an erection because _Jesus Christ_ …

“Well, I _am_ just as enjoyable.”

“I'll bet you are,” he agrees with a keen-eyed assurance that visibly pinks up her cheeks and has her cocking her head at him. She's judging how serious he may have been under the tease and he realizes, instantly, that he doesn't want her to think it's just an empty taunt. The flat of his palm curls around her foot and he pulls it deeper into his lap, nodding just minutely at the same time. “C’mere.”

_There it is._

So much about her that's beautiful lives within the curved borders and boundaries of that damn smile.

He may be mistaken but she looks like she wants to -

“You need your rest,” she argues faintly as she exhales. Still her body shifts higher in the chair and he lets go of her foot as she moves. Both her feet drop to the floor and she offers her hand as a replacement, one that he accepts quickly and before she can second guess herself.

_Rest isn't what I was thinkin’… But sure._

“That's exactly what we're gonna do.”

***

If he'd been sure of anything when he'd encouraged Jack to transfer to headquarters, it had been that one of two things would happen in regards to Gibbs...

Jethro was gonna love her or he was _absolutely_ gonna hate her.

Leon hadn't really imagined a moment wherein he'd walk up on the two of them curled together sleeping on a hospital bed. So he's surprised, to say the least. And he's confused by what else he's feeling because there's both a little bit elation and a little bit frustration.

Secretly he had really been hoping for something in the middle, a begrudging acceptance. Maybe charmed apathy would have been nice. Jack certainly could be charming…

Somewhere mid-spectrum was all he'd hoped for, not one of the polar extremes. And this was pretty far to one extreme end of the spectrum, as far as he was concerned. Because nobody got that physically close to Gibbs unless he instigated the touch.

Nobody else still working at headquarters would have had the free rein to snug up beside him in a hospital bed and lay a pretty palm flat against his chest while he slept.

Maybe Bishop, in a completely familial sort of way. _Maybe_.

Nobody else would be letting her head rest into the span of his shoulder.

And, frankly, when in the hell had it started with Jack?

“Nothing happened.”

_Right. Gibbs reads minds._

Leon half smiles with a cocked glance and an arched brow, “She looks pretty damn comfortable for it to be _nothing_.”

 _Nothing_ changes on the man's features, he stays perfectly pacified and unreadable and Leon holds back a smile. God, he should have known something like this was going to bite him in the back…

The one thing he doesn't need is Gibbs and Jack both tag-teaming his ass every time they disagree with something he’s said, ordered, requested. They're already separately insufferable.

“Leon…”

“Don't wake her up,” Vance orders, voice calmly insistent as he motions to the way Jack's still got her face buried in the other man's shoulder. Her hair is loose and mussed and Gibbs has his palm completely curled up over her shoulder.

Something twinges in the very center of his chest, pulls on that protective heart-string that she's usually tangled up in. He silently studies how she's got her palm spread out flat and possessive on the other man and he's suddenly dumbfounded by the fact that he hadn't seen something like this coming.

Jack emotionally complements Gibbs in ways that other women likely wouldn't. She certainly understands some of the things he's been through by way of her own experiences and not just sympathy. Leon knows she also appreciates his gruffness as a social honesty rather than taking it at all personally.

She’s also exactly the type to be beguiled and fascinated by some of his more… rustic quirks. She probably thinks the cooking-steaks-in-the-fireplace thing is characteristically adorable - or something as equally ridiculous.

“Are we in trouble?” Her voice is muzzy, still sleepy but also bemused. Sparked up brown eyes and a half grin on her face as she partially lifts her head and wedges her jaw against Gibbs.

The other man makes a breath that sounds like the vocalization of a shrug before, “Dunno.”

“We didn't even do anything yet,” she murmurs before looking up at Gibbs with a smile that actually has Vance feeling both superfluous and awkwardly out of place. It's so specific to Gibbs, made and meant for one man only. It's intimate without being overtly sexual. It's damn charming, actually. They both are. And he hates that he's elated by that.

If another woman looked at him with a smile that style he'd likely label it a promise. He just can't see Jack that way, not his friend.

Leon feels twice as useless to the conversation when Gibbs answers her with a smirked, “Yet?”

“You should both shut up right now,” Leon mutters as he tosses the newspaper he'd brought onto Gibbs’ lap. He points in the other man's direction while trying to swallow a chuckle and starts heading for the door. “Get some rest, Gibbs. We'll talk later.”

“Bye, Leon!”

 

***

 

“ _Yet_?”

She blinks her eyes slimmer as she turns her head back and watches his face. Jack just nods a silent agreement, a wordless sort of consent that has his brows lifting in mild surprise. She looks lovely in her silence, a content smile on her lips and her face slightly flushed, pinked along her cheekbones. There's an undeniable pleasure on her and it puts his lungs stop-still for a breath or two.

“Yeah?” He asks tentatively, his right hand lifting to the back of her head, fingers already threaded up in the warm thickness of her dark blonde hair. She's damn adorably messy, not nearly as put together as she is at work. But he's got a heart-on for Casual Jack. He loves seeing this Jack just as much as he loves watching the chic Special Agent Sloane.

“I think so,” Jack answers quietly, seeming to enjoy the way he's rubbing the pads of his fingers against her scalp in a half-hearted massage. “Agreed?”

“Definitely,” Gibbs sighs off, studying the double well of deep brown eyes in front of him. Jesus, it’s bottomless, _beautiful_. “Just don't really know how - ”

“I'm sure you're a quick learner.” Her interruption is purposely impish, purposely drawing him out as she shifts minutely. Gibbs feels the mattress angle under him and he does everything he can to hide the wince from flashed pain that spasms across his back. She sees it anyhow, a look of sadness over-taking her features. He shakes his head against her unspoken apology, stroking through her hair just so he can trace her hairline.

“Wanna shush a second?” He half laughs while he says it, unable to ignore how wildly broad her grin is.

_Incorrigible little -_

“Sure,” she shrugs, drawing herself up and little higher but leaning all her weight on her elbow and forearm now instead of him. She's lithe and long against his side, she feels good pressed close. “Commencing shush.”

His left hand shifts across his chest so that he can brush her hair out of her eyes, both hands framing her face as she blinks slowly. “Don't quite know how to start, Jack. With you… it's - ”

“Oh, that's a lie Gibbs. You know exactly - ”

Interrupting her tastes like the last of her evening coffee and some sort of sweet mint, comforting and sharp at once. It's a little bit of all she's been to him and he groans heat onto her tongue as he pulls her closer. She's not shy about kissing him, not at all tentative. She meets his movement with unequivocal agreement, her tongue stroking against his, teeth nipping on his bottom lip before she lifts her head from his and grins.

“Gibbs,” her eyes dip closed, head dropping forward as he kisses along one cheekbone, then in front of her ear. _Fuck_ , she smells like silken heat and - “I just - ”

“Thought you were gonna shush,” he accuses with wary humor.

One fractured hesitation makes her press her teeth into her bottom lip before she seems to juggle a thought back and forth. He waits and watches as she looks back up, a shuddering breath drawn before she speaks, “This isn't just because you almost - ”

“Not _just_ anything, Jack.”

Never could be. Not with her.

He wouldn't, couldn't. He's not capable of surface-only relationships and he couldn't possibly treat her as one anyhow. And she seems to know that as her eyes meet his.

“Okay,” she accepts, kissing the last half of the murmur onto his mouth.

He turns his head into the way she rests softly into his shoulder again, her body soothing out alongside his, “Okay.”

 

***

“Gibbs?” She exhales as the sound of her voice carries through the room, passing through the mostly closed door to the tiny bathroom adjoining his hospital room.

“Yeah!” he calls out, his voice boxed by the half closed door.

“Hey there,” she says softly as she gets closer, a couple sharp knocks against her side of the door. “You all right in there?”

“I'm good.” It's a beat before, “C'mere.”

“Yeah?” she asks and just barely hesitates before pushing the door open. He makes an attractive sight, standing centered to the sink and barefoot on the bathroom tile. He's shirtless, mostly still, and he has a skim of something foamy over his stubble. “ _Hello_.”

“Don't look at me like that,” he half chuckles, giving her an eye roll in their combined reflection as he shakes his head. He continues without explanation, swishing the razor through water while he leans the balance of his weight on the other palm, fingers curled around the sink edge.

“I can't help looking at you like that,” she explains as she watches him shave.

He's purposely moving slowly and tentatively, wary of the bruising and cuts that are still littered over the one side of his face. His back is worse in comparison but she's saved from seeing it, for the most part. The majority of his shoulders are covered by two large bandages, taped into place but still slowly rippling as he moves. There are blood spots and old stains showing through, letting her know that he's likely due for a change in dressing. The smaller ones that go down his spine are more sparse and random, bouncing back and forth across his back. All of them still somewhat stained by blood.

Jack watches his balance sway slightly as he tries to rinse the razor and she steps into the oddly lit bathroom, moving up close to him to be sure he stays upright. “Geena says your balance isn't all that great. Should you be - ”

“I'm fine,” he grunts in half annoyance and sways again, moving to take another stroke along his jawline and bracing against the sink. “Geena’s not my mother.”

“Could be the vertigo,” she murmurs, her hands rising to his sides as he watches her in the mirror. She carefully brackets her hands on each side of his torso, gently caging her palms on him as she steps forward. He'd taken at least half her fun away by tucking on an extremely loose pair of scrub pants. One of the bandages that crosses his back dips lower than the waistband and she winces at the sight of it. “Just a guess.”

“ _Jack_ ,” he hums at her, eyes dipping closed for a moment as he relaxes back and lets her stability bolster his own.

She can see every scrape and scar on his chest as she studies them both in the mirror, some old and some recent. When he exhales hard and his shoulders come down in relaxation she thinks he's more beautiful than he's ever been to her, just by way of vulnerability. She slips one palm forward and traces a scar that's just below his bottom rib on the right side. He just barely flinches at the touch, lifting his head again to meet her eyes on the mirror.

“But what would I know?” she says gently, turning the words up the back of his neck as he groans at her and the way she kisses just behind his ear.

He smells like the hospital, like generic laundry soap and antiseptic and it makes her want to squeeze around him and tuck close. It's nothing like the usual scent she equates with him. It's not familiar and, in fact, it makes her a tad nauseous.

It must be evident on her face too. Because he lays his hand over top of hers and turns his jaw toward her head. “M'okay, Jack.”

“You're pale as hell. Can you sit and let me finish this for you before your nurse comes in and gives me a verbal bitch slap?”

It takes her a few moments to get him to let go of the sink and turn, to let her be their combined balance as he sits side long on the toilet to face her. Weariness rests on his face but there's also a hint of humor, a spark on him that makes her laugh for no other reason than he's smiling at her so freely. She lifts his jaw and can feel the thinness of the soap he's used to try and get a lather in place of shaving cream. He's damp, soapy and giving her a grin that sends heat right deep into her gut.

She's pretty certain that she's already sold a smidge of her soul for that grin. There's a part of her that she's not ever getting back. Not now that she knows she has the secret ability to make something that gorgeous happen, and without too much effort on her part either.

“ _Stop it_. You'll make me blush.”

He just smiles even wider, chuckling before she playfully taps against his cheek to get him to go loose and passive. Gibbs coughs out the rest the laugh and swallows, loosening his features so that his face falls flat. Jack gently lifts his jaw again and starts running the razor against stubble. She can barely avoid how intensely he's staring up at her as she tries to focus.

“Stop.”

 _No, don't stop_.

She has to admit to herself, even if it’s just within the confines of her own over-active brain, that this is one of the best moments of her week. Strike that, actually, is the best moment of her week. Jack keeps her movements slow and steady, enjoying the way he watches her as she slowly scrapes the blade against the underside of his jaw. Her left hand cages the side she’s already finished after she swishes the triple blade in the towel plugged sink. She snorts amusement at his problem solving and sighs, forcing herself attentive as she finishes. Still, he just quietly watches her with an intensity that has her skin flushed hot.

Jack rinses the razor a last time, enjoying the fact that he's got some enterprising fingertips on the bottom hemline of her skirt. Jesus, he knows where and when to touch. He's too good at seducing her and he hasn't even tried yet.

She lifts the razor and flashes it at him before tucking it to the back of the sink. “How did you get this? Did someone bring it to you?”

“Timothy McGee.” His tone of voice as he speaks is victorious, like he's finally gotten something over on her and it makes her smile back reflexively. He's such a tease, beautifully so.

She just nods as she uses the dampened paper towels he'd started with to clean off his jaw. There's really only a nick or two and she shrugs as she tosses the wet wadded paper into the garbage. “He spoils you.”

“You look nice today, Jack,” he diverts, his knuckles brushing against her knee. She very suddenly realizes how insanely charming he can be because she's already blushing and he’s barely gotten breath back into his lungs after saying it.

“And you’re in a surprisingly good mood.”

“Knew you were comin’.” There’s a mischievous little smile on him, one that proves he'd gotten some inside information. One that also proves what a little shit he can be.

Jack just laughs freely, letting him tug her closer by the fabric of her shirt. “Timothy McGee told you?”

“Yup,” Gibbs agrees, lifting his jaw with a jerk, an unspoken hint for her to meet him halfway.

She grins into it and drops her mouth against his. A little whimper of a sound gets laid against his tongue when she feels his fingertips brush her stomach softly up under her shirt. He swallows the sound with a half growl and presses his hand flat to her skin, doubling the press of his kiss by sliding his tongue against hers. If she'd been at all worried about his earlier sincerity she had no doubt about it now.

“You two coming out of there sometime today?”

She sighs out of the kiss and laughs openly when she sees how annoyed his facial features look at the sound of his nurse’s voice from the other side of the door.

“You're not my mother. Stop telling other people what's wrong with me,” he tosses back, reaching up to push her hair back before he kisses her cheek in a way that has her wishing she could just throw him against the nearest wall.

Geena just gifts him with a good-natured laugh and a fist thump to the door. She really is the best nurse they could have chosen for him. “Get your cute butt out here. We need to change those and I want Jack to learn how.”

 

***

 

He had only made one request upon leaving the hospital when he'd been released but she's pretty sure it's the one single request that makes her whole body tense up.

_“Five minutes, Jack.”_

She doesn't want to take him to NCIS (but she makes all the appropriate turns anyhow).

Instead she wants to take him home and shower the hospital smell off him. She wants to be able to touch him and kiss him and simply watch him in his own _safe_ space. She wants to put him to bed and stretch out beside him and -

“You don't have to come in,” Gibbs tells her as he pulls his credentials from the bag on the floor between his feet, his other hand squeezing briefly against her leg to placate.

She’s not sure that it makes her feel all that much better.

She’s not sure she wants him walking into work yet.

“You could have died for this place.” She can taste how bitter the sentiment is as she stares forward, just right at the back of her tongue. It tastes heavy, angry.

“It's not the _place_ , Jack,” he negates softly, leaning closer to her. It's not hard to do in her car, really. He's already folded all up as he brushes a kiss against her cheek. “You know that.”

She does know it. She knows exactly what he means. And he belongs in the building in front of them more than anyone else she’s ever known. She cannot argue that. He’s their keystone... He belongs to the building more than he belongs to her and maybe that's why she's actually so wary of him stepping back inside it.

He flashes a smile and tugs at the door handle with ease. “Five minutes. I promise.”

Following him is just instinct, really.

***

Two and a half hours later and he’s finally in his own shower and she can let her shoulders go down loose as she half relaxes. He's already been in there for half an hour but she doesn't begrudge him consistent hot water and the comforts of home.

Jack just makes coffee and leisurely restocks his fridge in the meantime. The nearest corner grocery had been their last stop on the way and she had smiled warmly when one of the younger cashiers had kept giving her a wide-eyed stare of confusion, mouth half open. She can't imagine he takes a lot of women grocery shopping with him. The awkwardness had been delicious and she's still smirking to herself about it when the water shuts off.

She starts pouring coffee and by the time she has two cups ready, hers with a heavy dose of sugar, he’s half into the kitchen and quieter than she expects. He moves faster than she expects too, a hand catching against her side and digging her shirt up into his fist as she lifts her cup up and away to keep him from spilling it.

She smiles into the wide open look he gives her, nodding up at him, “The three of them were so - ”

“Shut up, Jack,” he tosses off, kissing her sharply. His whole body steps forward into hers and it's impossible for her to fight it. Not when the hand at her side strokes onto her lower back and supports her as he pushes farther forward. He doesn't give her any leeway or control this time, not by an inch. He controls the movement, the strength, the fervor. His tongue against hers is insistent, unforgiving, and downright fucking sexy. He hasn't been quite so possessive yet and something about how curt and persistent he's being has her skin warm and taut. She gives up a sound of disappointment as he ends the kiss and she can feel him chuckle against her lips in response.

“... thrilled to see you,” she whispers off a sigh, slowly lifting the coffee to her lips with an almost shaky hand. “They missed you.”

Gibbs grins at her, his focus on her mouth as he nods. She wants to babble like an idiot or bury her face in his chest but something in the way he presses his fingertips against her spine keeps her head up. She stays purposely slow as she takes a sip of coffee, letting him watch the movement.

His head cocks a fraction of an inch as he smiles wider. “You made coffee?”

“Don't judge it ‘til you've tried it, Cowboy.”

That hallmark grin goes wide and infectious, it has her suddenly smiling back before he even answers. “I'll keep that in mind.”

**Author's Note:**

> ** props to Geena, the real ICU nurse who was working with my fam while I wrote this. Also Desiree, David, Katie... Thank a nurse, guys. They don't get enough praise.


End file.
